I'm Here For You
by rebelrsr
Summary: Lena attends Game Night after finding out Kara's secret and makes a decision about how to handle the knowledge.
1. Chapter 1

The game choice was ironic, Lena thought. Life. Her tiny car with it's little pink peg went forward and back along the board at the whim of the number wheel and the "life events" written in the squares.

She had no agency. No impact on whether she succeeded or failed.

"Ouch!" Alex winced in mock pain as Lena slid her plastic game piece back five squares and counted out a hundred fake dollars. "Braces for the kid. Too bad."

Lena raised her glass in a mocking toast before tossing back the last of the whiskey. She'd brought two bottles of wine but hadn't touched a drop. Tonight needed more than pressed grapes. "Time for a refill." She wasn't far gone enough for the words to slur but a hint of brogue tainted her normally flat cadence.

"You sure?" Kara glanced up from her spot near Alex. Her concern was easy to read.

Without bothering to answer, Lena stood and slipped around the coffee table turned games table. "Anyone else need anything? More chips? Wine?"

A chorus of requests answered, and Lena forced a laugh. "I'm talented but perhaps not _that _talented." Talented and _stupid_. The word reverberated around and around in her brain. How had she ever believed any of the people in the room?

How had she believed _Kara_?

Her glass clattered onto the kitchen counter as Lena fought to breathe around the weight pressing on her chest. So much weight. It was a wonder her clavicle hadn't been crushed already.

"Hey." Kara's hand settled on Lena's. "I'm worried about you. You…you don't usually drink this much on Games Night."

This time, Lena couldn't summon the willpower to fake a smile. "It's been a rough few days." I killed my brother. "I've earned a few extra." My best friend _betrayed _me. The words sat on her tongue. Burning and twisting. Waiting to be hurled at Kara.

Lena poured far more than two fingers of the whiskey she'd given to Alex right after Maggie had broken off the engagement and knocked it back.

"Maybe you should…" Kara reached for the bottle.

Turning her head, Lena regarded Kara with all the cold contempt normally reserved for her Board or a particularly dense member of the press.

Kara's hand dropped away. "Tell me what's wrong. Please!" Silence stretched between them; although, Lena felt Kara observing her. "Whatever you need. I'm here for you, no matter what."

_I'm here for you_.

Hands shaking, Lena poured another glass of whisky but didn't drink it. All of a sudden, she could breathe again. Yet the lightness in her chest wasn't a relief. Kara's words, her continued lies…

Rather than fuel the molten fury of a Luthor scorned, they left Lena empty. Hollow. One more false offer of comfort away from shattering. "I should go," she whispered. Of course, Kara heard her. Because she was only inches away? Or super hearing?

"No!" Kara protested. "I don't think you should be alone. Come on. You can stay with me. We'll curl up on the couch and watch something mindless and you can…"

Lena's fingers were stiff and uncooperative as she patted Kara's arm. "I'm sure I'll feel better in the morning." Her lips twisted, unable to approximate a happy expression. She slipped passed Kara and marched to the door.

"Lena, wait!" Kara.

Then Alex. "Lena? Do you need a ride?"

"Miss Luthor?" The always polite and formal Nia.

The door closed with a decisive thud, blocking out the voices. Shutting Lena away from the only friends she'd ever had. The family she'd been so reluctant to choose but had let into her life and found the happiness life as a Luthor had lacked.

Happiness built on a foundation of lies. Lena wished desperately that she'd never let Clark and Kara into her office for that first antagonistic interview. Had never bent beneath the sunny brightness of Kara's smile. Lena had been fine without Kara then.

Now? Now all Lena had was the Luthor legacy.

Her car and driver waited at the curb as she exited the building. "Home, Miss Luthor?"

"The office, please." Work had been Lena's companion before Kara. It would be her salvation after.


	2. Chapter 2

It was raining.

Not a gentle patter of drops but a waterfall of pounding, painful water pellets. Lena's suit jacket was soaked from the deluge and her blouse, already torn and grime encrusted, clung to her neck and chest.

Despite the discomfort, she stood resolutely next to the Fire Chief from Fire Station Three. "Miss Luthor," he began.

"I'm fine, Chief." They'd played out the same inane conversation nearly a dozen times since Supergirl had dropped Lena off an hour ago. He seemed to think Lena was fragile or prone to collapsing beneath the weight of the horror around her.

Chief Spiele had obviously never met a Luthor.

Lena kept her attention glued to the L-Corp building in the distance. Smoke and flames billowed from multiple windows on what had once been the fifteenth floor. An innocuous section of the L-Corp empire. Offices for Legal and Finance. Mergers and Acquisitions.

And, disguised behind several deliberately empty conference rooms, Lena's private lab.

The probable target for the incendiary devices (the Chief wouldn't call them bombs) that had turned Lena's quiet Saturday into a nightmare.

She'd been lucky. So early on a Saturday morning, only Lena and a skeleton crew of the Security and Facilities staff had been in the building. No one had died as a result of the attack. Not for wont of trying, though. The devices had been expertly set. Lena didn't know the extent of the structural damage; however, she'd been an eyewitness as portions of the sixteenth floor had sagged or unceremoniously fallen from above, nearly trapping her beneath them.

"_Lena!" The shout had barely penetrated the wail of the fire alarms and the second wave of concussive blasts. It wouldn't have mattered if Supergirl…Kara had used a megaphone. Sound rose and fell like a radio volume knob being randomly turned up and down. _

_Warm hands carefully slipped under Lena's shoulders and knees. "I've got you. You're safe."_

As freezing rain continued to weigh down Lena's clothing and hair, the heat and comfort of strong arms remained an ephemeral barrier to the chill.

Kara hadn't lingered after leaving Lena safely sheltered by the portico of National City Bank. She'd zipped back into the air only to return time after time with terrified and sometimes injured L-Corp staff. Always with a smile and a kind word.

Always with a single, penetrating glance at Lena. Observing. Judging.

When emergency medical personnel arrived, Lena left the safety of the overhang. Press vans and hordes of reporters and cameramen shoved against the NCPD perimeter containment barrier. The line of hastily-parked radio cars and uniformed officers barely controlled the unruly paparazzi.

Standing with the Chief, soaking wet and with the backdrop of her burning building, Lena would be the focus of every "money shot" and shouted question. Better a waterlogged Luthor than the innocent victims of the explosions.

She ignored all of it in favor of watching Supergirl put out the lingering flames with a blast of freeze breath. Calculated the odds of the building collapsing due to the damage as Supergirl fused several exposed girders together with controlled flashes of lasers from her eyes.

In minutes, L-Corp appeared unharmed – if Lena ignored the missing windows and curls of smoke. If she kept her eyes turned away from the flashing red, white, and blue light bars on the police cars and the blue-clad EMTs caring for her employees.

Boots thudded against concrete. Lena swore she felt Kara's gaze rake over her and shivered convulsively.

"Chief." Kara's voice was so hesitant. So unlike her usual Supergirl persona. She had to look – and nearly gasped as she got caught up in Kara's intense stare. "I think you and your crew can take it from here. Be careful, though. I'm not an engineer and that structural repair was pretty much a Band-Aid on the problem."

Kara glanced away from Lena to shake the Chief's hand. "It's always a pleasure, Supergirl." Chief Spiele's smile was bright. Strangely brighter than Kara's, whose lips only twitched into a pale facsimile of her normal cheerful and heroic expression.

The handshake lasted seconds. Flashbulbs fired and the harsh white lights of dozens of video cameras lit up their meeting as news crews sought a perfect shot for the lead into the evening news.

Then Kara stepped back, knees bent for takeoff. Until she looked at Lena again.

Lena straightened until her spine threatened to shatter. "Supergirl." Lillian would have finally been proud of the lack of emotion in Lena's voice. "L-Corp is in your debt."

She saw the words hit Kara with the force of a Kryptonite sword. Kara's face paled and the faltering smile on her lips disappeared completely. The smile rallied. It was so patently fake, and Lena saw the effort Kara made hold it steady. "Le…Miss Luthor."

Now Lena was the one bolstering her expression. The Chief wouldn't hear the tremor in Kara's voice. He wouldn't see the tears blurring the blue of Kara's eyes.

Lena did. Lena heard Kara's throat work as she swallowed.

Lena watched as Kara's fingers fumbled with the clasps of her cloak.

"You're cold." Some of Kara's normal concern and care bled into her flat tone. "Here. This will keep you warm and dry." She wrapped the cape around Lena's head and shoulders. "You can leave it on your balcony when you don't need it anymore."

The inference that Kara continued to patrol over L-Corp, continued to keep Lena safe…

In a flash of red, blue, and gold, Kara leapt into the air. Her profile alien without the signature cape billowing behind her.

"We're lucky to have Supergirl as the guardian of National City," Chief Spiele said.

"_I'm here for you,"_ Kara's voice whispered in Lena's memory.

Bending her head, Lena rubbed her cheek against the smooth material of Kara's cape. "Yes, we are."


End file.
